on the eve of the start of his second term, president obama announced that he would spend this term at least in part on an issue commonly believed to be among the heaviest lifts in all of american politics. he said he would do something about gun violence. now the president can create certain changes by himself with his executive authority. he can make changes, not laws. he cannot change laws, but he can change things that the administration is responsible for itself. for big changes, though, for real reform, the president needs congress to pass new laws, and that's where the real political heavy lifting comes in. to do that political heavy lifting, the white house announced a new political strategy, or at least a new political tactic to try to get this done. the 2012 obama/biden reelection campaign would morph itself into an advocacy group, a powerful democratic grassroots activism machine. the old campaign would transfer to this new group its vast database of information about obama supporters, about voters. and then the new group would mobilize supporters to mobilize the president's